Life Under Naser al-Din Shah Was So Cheap You Won't Believe It / People of That Era Cursed the King's Assassin

Why Did Older Generations Call Naser al-Din Shah the “Martyred King” Out of Gratitude? / In a note published in the magazine “Khandaniha” on 22 Mehr 1329, Saeed Nafisi recounts the legendary cheapness of bread and other provisions in that era.

According to Ambassador Arjan, why did the people of Iran, years after the assassination of Naser al-Din Shah, still remember him well and curse his killer? Saeed Nafisi, a writer, historian and famous professor of Tehran University, in a note in the magazine "Khwandaniha" (22 October 1329), reveals the secrets of a time when "bread was cheap, the king tilted his hat to show off his superiority, and the tulip garden was the home of the women of the court and the palace of the king." This detailed and cinematic narrative takes us to the alleys of old Tehran; From the story of the great famine and folk ballads to the most controversial wedding of the Qajar court.

Still in the corners of Iran, those who have lived for about seventy years, mention the name of Naser al-Din Shah, the Qajar king, with special respect and recognition, and when they say his name, if you look closely at their faces, you can see that they suck their lips and fill their mouths with water, and this is the proof that they ate well and grazed their bellies during his time. All these call his name "Shah Shaheed" to be right about him, and 100% Mirza Reza Kermani considers his killer cursed and hellish.

The only reason why the people of Iran love Naser al-Din Shah is that life was very cheap during his time.

The only reason why Iranian people love Naseruddin Shah is that in his time life was very cheap, so cheap that you can't believe it. At that time, the newspaper had just been created in Iran, but like today, lead printing was not completely popular, that is, when they brought printing to Iran during the time of Fath Ali Shah, it was lead printing, then they saw that the trouble of typesetting was too much, and stone printing became common, where the scribe wrote in fine lines with printing ink and cast them on the stone, and they produced a maximum of seven hundred copies. Newspapers were also printed in lead type. At first, there was only one newspaper in Tehran called "Occidental Events", then they named it "Government Against Iran Newspaper" and gradually more newspapers were added, and newspapers were also published in Tabriz and then in Isfahan, but of course all of these were government-owned, not that they took money from the people and called the government flattery like today, but the newspaper was paid for by the government and it was not limited to the people buying and subscribing. become

In the newspapers of that time, at least once, a detailed picture of the prices of that time can be seen, and it is clear that the people also observed it, and there was no way of evasion and cheating like today's municipal rates. The prices that can be seen in these newspapers are not believable and it is appropriate that one day I write about the difference between the prices of that time and today for the readers.

In order to have a measure in your hands, remember that the most expensive bread price during the period of Naser al-Din Shah was one man and one Quran. That is, fourteen to fifteen times less than today [1329 solar year], and that was just in the year of famine, in 1288 lunar year [1248 solar year], that is exactly eighty-two years ago, there was a very difficult time in Iran. In the summer of that year, cholera caused a strange massacre in the cities of Iran, and in some cities exactly one third of the people died. In Tehran, which had a population of around one hundred and fifty thousand, sixty thousand people died of cholera.

There is a definite rule in human history, and that is that every year when a severe infectious disease occurs, it is followed by a very deadly famine, because these infectious diseases destroy the small-scale people, i.e. workers and farmers, and they do not cultivate, and a famine inevitably occurs a few months later. In the winter of that year, there was a very severe famine in all of Iran, and the price of bread, which until then was still one and a half pols in the so-called of that day, i.e. one Abbasi and half a Shahi (at that time, money was so low that there was a half Shahi coin and it was called a poli) and ten half of that two rials, increased to one and a half Koran. Last year, Naser al-Din Shah went on a pilgrimage to Atbat, and this tragedy that happened was so unfortunate for the people of Iran that they blamed the Shah and wrote a ballad for him, and these two poems were the translation of that ballad:

"Shah Kajkla... has gone to Karbala/ bread has become expensive... one man, one century"

In this case, regardless of this expensive incident that was resolved the following year, during that period bread was almost sixty times cheaper than now. This "king with a crooked hat" at that time everyone saw good and bad through his eyes, especially from the middle of the reign, he used to wear his hat crooked in order to have an advantage with other people because wearing a crooked hat was impolite in that period and only those who were superior could do this and the subordinates had to wear the hat straight in the presence of the superiors. One of the other privileges of his reign, in which he deliberately made his superiority known to the people, was that he deliberately raised his voice, wore cashmere clothes, apart from the collar, he sewed a gold emblem on his skin cap, which was two lions standing facing each other and raised on two legs.

This garden was called "Tulip Garden"... in the beginning it was a zoo, which means wild animals were kept there.

One of the strangest privileges of his was that all people considered him confidential to their wives, daughters and sisters, and at that time when all women even took their brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, he was, so to speak, confidential to everyone that day, which means he could see every woman's face. From that time, there was a large garden in the middle of the four streets of Tehran, Mokhbar al-Doulah intersection from the north, Ekbatan street from the south, Lalezar street from the west, and Saadi street from the east, because the northern moat of Tehran was today's Chirag Bargh street. This garden was called "Bagh Lalezar" and the name of Lalezar street is from there. In the beginning, it was a zoo, that is, they kept wild animals there, and then they moved the horror garden to Dushantepe and Farahabad, and the tulip garden became the king's excursion. Every year on the 13th day of Nowruz, all the women of Tehran nobles, both married women and their daughters, were the guests of Anis al-Dawlah, the wife of the Shah's beloved wife, for lunch and dinner in this garden. The king had many wives, sometimes their number reached twenty, and among them, the beautiful and clever daughter of Shemirani stole his heart the most and was nicknamed Anis al-Dawlah and became the absolute owner of the king's life. Every year, he invited all the famous women of Tehran with their daughters to this tulip garden, and it can be seen how the women decorated themselves and wore beautiful and luxurious clothes, and how they all went out of their way to invite them, because this invitation on the 13th of Farvardin was the highest honor of every woman.

In the evening, when possible, they would arrange a very luxurious royal evening, and the king would enter through the south door of the garden, facing the northern bank of Shahnashahi, and leave through the north door, which was opened in Mokhbar al-Doleh square today, but of course he would stay in the garden for a few hours and introduce the women and girls he saw for the first time, and sometimes he would give a tip to anyone who caught his attention or give him a suitable nickname, and sometimes it happened that tomorrow The girl was proposed to the king.

The king used to visit at close intervals and sometimes once a week, and when he arrived at the grave of Jeeran, he would shed tears and regret.

Even though Anis al-Dawlah was the king's favorite, he was the one inside the king who trusted the king more than him. Naseruddin Shah prefers a tall, thin woman with big black eyes and a long face. In his youth, he had fallen in love with such a woman named Jiran, and she was destitute and died young, and the king suffered greatly from her death and ordered that a very luxurious tomb be built for him in Prince Abdul Azim's mausoleum, which is still known as Jiran's tomb in the vicinity of Prince Abdul Azim's portico. When he was in Tehran, he used to visit at close intervals and sometimes once a week, and when he arrived at the grave of Jeeran, he would shed tears and regret.

The strangest thing is that on the last day of his life, he went to visit the beloved of his youth and died from there. Because on Friday, 17 Dhul-Qada 1313 [12 May 1275], he was busy preparing for his fiftieth anniversary celebration, which should be celebrated in Tehran in a few months, he had gone on a pilgrimage, and after he got up from Jiran's grave and came out of Prince Abdul Azim's portico to go to Imamzadeh Hamza, he met Mirza Rezai Kermani in the corridor between the two porticos and shot him with a pistol shot. He lost his feet and went to this world five minutes later, and maybe the last image he took from the world is the memory of those young days when he was in love with Jeeran.

You were a maidservant who was dearer than Anis al-Doulah

The person who was dearer than Anis al-Dawlah was a Kurdish maid. The king gave him the title of Amin Aghdas. Since ancient times, Kurds in Iran have been known for their honesty, integrity, honesty, loyalty, chivalry, and prejudice in their beliefs. Until fifty years ago, it was common in Iran that during the suppression of disobedient clans, their wives and daughters were captured and kept in their homes.

Amin-Aqdas was a Kurdish maid who had shown a lot of merit, trust and manipulation in Naser al-Din Shah's interior, and for that reason, she was the king's complete trust, and the king entrusted her with his jewels, money, dowry, important documents and secrets, and for this reason, he nicknamed her "Amin Aqdas" and inevitably, such a person was very dominant over the king and had absolute authority over his internal life and material life, and the influence he had, Anis al-Dawlah, was not respected with all that.

Since that day, Naseruddin Shah had put this ugly, infamous child as a slave.

Amin Aghdas had a brother who had gained a position in the court through his sister, and he had just found a little boy named Gholam Ali, who was a very thin, black and bold child. Sometimes when this child was taken to his uncle, he would confront the king, and because he was a articulate child, he had not yet reached the point where he could not play with language in the presence of the king. He was noticed by Naser al-Din Shah. He showed and shouted "Milijek", "Milijek" which means sparrow in Kurdish language. Since that day, Naser al-Din Shah had made this ugly, infamous child, Melijak, and his degree of closeness to the Shah reached the point where people used him as a mediator and intercessor in the most important personal and political affairs, and everything that Malijak was a mediator in was approved by the king. At the age of twelve, "Ghulam Ali Khan Malijak" was nicknamed "Aziz al-Sultan" and from then on, Aziz al-Sultan became one of the most important men of the Iranian court, to the extent that in the photos he is standing in the front row and in the same first row with the king, and the ministers and nobles are all behind him.

Naser al-Din Shah married his daughter to Malijak

In the last year of Naser al-Din Shah's reign, Malijak was fifteen or sixteen years old. Haj Mirza Hossein Khan Mushir al-Doleh, the famous Sepahsalar Azam Chancellor, when he was deposed and angry, his residence (which started from behind the wall of the new Sepahsalar Mosque and led to Jale street and on the other side to the alley behind the mosque, and the Sepahsalar Mosque was built in the same area and by his hand) was seized and for a long time, until the National Assembly was moved there, it was the place where the government received foreign guests.

Naser al-Din Shah gave Aziz al-Sultan a part of this house, which is the residence of the chairman of the Majlis and the Senate, and Akhtar al-Dawlah married one of his young daughters to him.

The night when the bride was taken from the court to the groom's house through Nasser Khosro Street, Ekbatan Street, Zal-ul-Sultan Street, and Baharestan Square, it was a very cold winter, the likes of which have never been seen in Tehran.

In this way, Akhtar-Dawlah, the eleven-year-old daughter of Naseruddin Shah, was taken to the house of Gholam Ali Khan Malijak Azizul-Sultan, a fifteen-year-old Kurdish youth.

The bride was supposed to be seated on an elephant that had just been brought from India by the Shah and it was located in Ferdowsi Street today at the southern opening of Third Esfand Street, but as soon as they brought the elephant and the bride looked at it and wanted to hug it and put it on the elephant's shoulder, she was afraid and started crying and refused to ride this mountain animal at any cost. Naser al-Din Shah had a very luxurious carriage that had large windows on four sides and was tied to six horses, and Reza Shah rode in it on the day of his coronation. They brought this carriage with all the luxury and put the bride in it. Six horses were tied with red velvet robes embroidered with pearls.

The coachman was sitting on his seat in his luxurious silk robe. A group of a hundred camels with Zardozi-embroidered funnel caps and red mahout robes and silver clubs were moving in front of the carriage, and in front of them a regiment of soldiers (as if the famous Silakhori soldiers who were the most daring and skilled) marched in two lines from both sides of the street. Almost three hours had passed since the night. The soldiers in the square had placed a bouquet of flowers and a plaster candle in the barrel of their gun. In this way, Akhtar-Dawlah, the eleven-year-old daughter of Naseruddin Shah, was taken to the house of Gholam Ali Khan Malijak Azizul-Sultan, a fifteen-year-old Kurdish youth. In the spring of that year, that is, four months after this incident, Naser al-Din Shah, who had just risen from visiting the grave of Jeeran, his young lover, was killed by Mirza Reza Kermani's arrow, and his daughter Akhtar-Dawlah came out of Aziz-ul-Sultan's house shortly after that incident and became the wife of Arbab Faraj, one of the wealthy bakers of Tehran, and that wedding, which has not yet been seen in the history of Iran, ended in this way.